OAKLAND,
CA (1/10/09) -- Twelve unions met in Washington DC last week, and announced
they’re considering rejoining the two labor federations, the American
Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and
Change to Win (CTW), that split apart five years ago. And one large independent
union, the National Education Association, is thinking of joining them.
The initiative came from the incoming Obama administration, which told
union leaders it didn’t relish the idea of dealing with competing
union agendas.

Many
progressive labor activists greeted the idea with a sigh of relief. “Dividing
the labor movement was never a good idea to begin with,” says Bill
Fletcher, former education director for the AFL-CIO. Fletcher and many
others believe that while U.S. unions have big problems, they can’t
be cured by division, competing federations, or simple changes in structure.
Instead, they call for a reexamination of labor’s political direction.

Unions
are at their lowest point in membership since the 1920s, representing
less than 12% of the workforce. Obama’s election, which they pulled
out all the stops to achieve, promises some degree of change from Federal
policies that have accelerated that decline. The president-elect has appointed
potentially the most pro-union labor secretary since the 1930s –
Congresswoman Hilda Solis. A potential Congressional majority could pass
the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make union organizing much easier
and protect workers from retaliatory firings while they unionize. Obama
has promised to sign the bill if Congress passes it.

In
industry after industry, the impact of revived unions and growing membership
could be enormous. For the first time in U.S. history, for example, unions
have gained the strength to organize the rest of the hospital and nursing
home industries. That would radically improve the jobs and raise the income
of hundreds of thousands of nurses, dietary workers and bed changers,
in the same way the CIO and the San Francisco General Strike turned longshoremen
from day laborers on the waterfront into some of the country’s highest-paid
blue-collar workers. An organized healthcare industry, in alliance with
consumers, could finally convince Congress to establish a single-payer
system guaranteeing healthcare to every person in this country.

Yet
while the 12 leaders were sitting down in Washington to discuss unity,
the healthcare division of country’s largest union, the Service
Employees, may be torn apart in a fight between the union’s national
leaders and its largest local, United Healthcare West. Such a fratricidal
conflict could not only jeopardize hopes for organizing healthcare workers,
but even labor’s larger political goals of the Employee Free Choice
Act and single-payer healthcare.

Decisions
made by unions often affect workers far beyond their own members. The
labor upsurge of the 1930s and 40s led to national contracts in the auto,
steel, longshore and electrical industries, establishing pension and medical
benefits, raising wages, and forcing the creation of the unemployment
insurance and Social Security systems. All workers benefited. And when
many master agreements were destroyed in the early 1980s, workers’
middle-class lifestyles began to erode everywhere.

Joining
the AFL-CIO and CTW back together is a sensible step in marshalling the
resources needed to take advantage of the openings presented by a new
Obama administration, and begin rebuilding what was lost. But that larger
sense of responsibility should inspire unions to face a basic question.
They cannot rebuild their own strength, much less improve life for all
workers, by themselves.

A
new direction in labor requires linking unions with other social and economic
justice movements. Defending immigrants from raids and helping them win
legal status is just as important to the growth of unions as passing the
Employee Free Choice Act. U.S. workers need a new trade policy, which
stops using poverty to boost corporate profits abroad, impoverishing and
displacing millions of people in the process. But that policy can’t
be won by unions negotiating with the administration by themselves, outside
of a much broader coalition.

Health
care reform requires an alliance between health care providers and working
class consumers. The communities in which all workers live need real jobs
programs and a full employment economy, especially Black and Latino communities.
People far beyond unions will help win the Employee Free Choice Act and
rebuild the labor movement if the it is willing to fight for everyone.

Unions
need not just more unity and better organizing techniques, but a vision
that will inspire workers. They need to speak directly to their desperation
over insecure jobs, home foreclosures and falling income, and then lead
them into action, even (or especially) if it makes a Democratic administration
and Congress uncomfortable. As much as Obama has done labor a favor by
forcing it to discuss reunification, political calculations in Washington
can’t be the guide to what is possible. Workers need a movement
that fights for what they really need, not what beltway lobbyists say
legislators will accept.

In
the period of its greatest growth, labor proposed an alternative social
vision that inspired people to risk their jobs and homes, and even lives
- that society could be organized to ensure social and economic justice
for all people. Workers were united by the idea that they could gain enough
political power to end poverty, unemployment, racism, and discrimination.
“Workers are looking for answers,” Fletcher says. “Without
them we’ll get further despair. What we need instead is to organize
for an alternative.”